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Markets For IPv4 Addresses Emerging

Posted by Soulskill on from the former-owner-only-pinged-it-on-sundays dept.

netbuzz writes "An active marketplace for buying and selling IPv4 addresses is materializing, and policymakers are clarifying the rules associated with how network operators can monetize this increasingly scarce resource. At least four websites are serving as brokers for organizations that want to sell or lease IPv4 address space. The activity comes in the wake of Nortel's recent sale of 666,624 IPv4 addresses to Microsoft for $7.5 million, or $11.25 per address."

4 of 157 comments (clear)

  1. Routing prevents "market" from working by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    It is not possible to sell individual addresses. Period. It is not possible to sell small allocations between networks either. You can't keep your /28 address space if you move. Minimum space is /24 and that has to be assigned by the registrar or you "buy it" from someone with the blessing of the registrar. Of course, they would not allow the IP address space to be fragmented as that would cause more problems than it solves.

    This is akin to routing phone numbers. In the past, numbers were hardwired to specific access areas. This remains true for most part today. The exception is today you can route phone numbers via IP (ie. internet). This allows us to have a market for phone numbers.

    Is this possible with IP addresses? Sure! We "just" need a larger, more flexible address space where IPv4 can be assigned to. We could even call it something like, I don't know, IPv6. Then when network transitions to this space, the old IPv4 could use inventions like tunneling and IPSec to route IPv4 addresses over IPv6 for legacy applications thereby allowing individual IPv4 address to be portable!

  2. Re:Have /21 pre arin block for sale by jcurran · · Score: 4, Informative

    If it''s registered in the ARIN service region, then its subject to policies developed by the community in this region for transfers. Go to www.arin.net and click on "Got IPv4 Addresses" for details.
    Thanks!
    /John

    John Curran
    President and CEO
    ARIN

  3. Re:I've got a large number of IPv6 addresses for s by Kjella · · Score: 4, Informative

    Dual stack, they will all still use an IPv4 address. If all ISPs had done this years ago and we had slowly phased out IPv4 in favor of IPv6 this would have worked. Now it will do nothing to lessen the blow of the brick wall we're running into.

    --
    Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
  4. legacy blocks by jcurran · · Score: 5, Informative

    Incorrect. Blocks allocated prior to ARIN are still maintained in the ARIN database accordingly to community policies. This includes processing contract, updates, being reclaimed, etc.
    /John
    John Curran President and CEO
    ARIN